


Chasing Cars

by unionforj



Category: Melanie Masson - Fandom, Union J (Band), X Factor (UK) RPF
Genre: Abuse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-28
Updated: 2013-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-06 19:14:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/739158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unionforj/pseuds/unionforj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>George has scars, but they really can’t be seen. Not all abuse leaves scars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chasing Cars

**Author's Note:**

> Triggering for those who have been verbally and/or emotionally abused.

Dad used to drive fast, just to hear mum scream. She’d put her feet up on the glove compartment, shout his name outrageously and trill his name at the top of his lungs. He’s speed up around the corner, going ten, twenty, thirty or even forty over the speed limit. Will would yell at him, demand for him to slow down, and Harriett would cry. That would just make him go faster. Dad laughed at their fear. He really did.

It was mum’s car, but he always drove it without asking. George didn’t think it was fair, but whenever he brought it up, mum told him to keep the peace in the house. She never got to touch his car, and if any one did, Dad would fly off the handle. That was his car. His car was special. But he’d just grab mum’s car keys like nothing was ever the matter, and mum wouldn’t bat an eye lid.

George thought Dad should at least ask.

“I gave you life,” His dad used to say, all the time, “I can take it back, and no one will care.”

George was pretty sure he was joking. But after hearing it so many times, it was hard to convince himself otherwise.

Dad sometimes made Will, Harriett and George sit on towels in his car, if he thought they smelled bad after tennis practice. Will told his siblings it was a joke, and George tried to laugh, but after the third tennis practice and the teachers were looking at him with their heads tilted, he didn’t think it wasn’t so much fun. Will tried to make his lips turn up, but it turned into a grimace, and George appreciated the effort.

It was really funny though, later that day when a shopping trolley ran into dad’s car and dented the bumper. Dad screamed all afternoon. Will and Harriett started snickering into their cuffs as Dad kicked the trolley into the curb for daring to hurt his precious, German imported sports car.

But then he demanded that Toni come home early from work to take him to the only BMW repair shop that he deemed good enough for his car, nearly getting her fired.

Dad liked to make a show of pretending to listen to them, rolling his eyes and nodding as they made their points and values known during the conversation. George and his siblings grew used to watching the ground as they talked, only ever really only to each other. They couldn’t watch the television during dinner but he was more than welcome to have his magazines.

When he was seventeen, his mum finally divorced his dad, and everything calmed down. He and his brother and his sister started looking up and around, and it was… nice. And then, George auditioned for X Factor. There were people everywhere, all around him. But he could sing, and that was all that mattered, and then he was put in a boy band.

And he had friends, for once in his life.

But then people started asking him questions. They wanted to know what was going on inside his head. They wanted to know what he was thinking. All his life, no one cared. No one was supposed to care what went on inside his head.

It didn’t make sense. It didn’t process that these strangers, would want to know anything about him. It didn’t figure that Josh wanted to know why George liked the sounds monkeys made, or wanted to play twenty questions with him, or ask him why anything. Josh shouldn’t care about anything. 

Dermot had surprised him onstage, shoving a microphone in his face and asking him something; George hadn’t even heard him. George couldn’t help it; he just started to laugh. He’d only really learned to look people in the eye when they spoke to him recently- he couldn’t just improvise an answer of some deep, emotional meaning. He could hear Dermot coming for him again, and George started to giggle once more, and Dermot started to poke fun at him.

“Every time, he starts giggling! Every time!”

Melanie Masson nicknamed it “George’s Giggle Attacks” by week one, when she had forced his chin up to make him look her in the eye. She’d just gone and grasped him by the chin, sick of him going round looking down. She had yanked it up and told him to look people in the eye when talking. He started to giggle nervously, he couldn’t stop for about five minutes, and everyone started calling Melanie, Momma Melanie, who just tucked George under her chin and told him it was fine. George hadn’t believed her, but it was nice to hear while he was laughing.

Dermot thought George’s Giggle Attacks were hilarious, often trying to trick George into one when he could. But George couldn’t help it. There was something about people. They were scary. They were judging him. He could tell. He’d never had friends before, and now all of a sudden they all supposedly wanted a piece of him. It was new and he didn’t understand.

He never thought the boys would notice. He never thought they would care. He never thought it was so obvious. But he also never thought it would be so hard to look Jaymi in the eye when he told him that when he got too stressed out, he couldn’t let his food touch on his plate, and sometimes he had to pick his sandwiches apart.

“Look at me,” Jaymi demanded. He grabbed at George’s wrist, trying to get his attention. George looked up, at Jaymi’s nose. “That’s not me, George, that’s my nose. Look at me.”

Jaymi and the boys claimed they wanted to listen to him. They said they wanted to listen to him talk about why he lived with his mum and Harriett, why Will ran away to fight.

They claimed that they wanted to know why he hadn’t talked to his dad since he was sixteen, and why his dad’s phone number was blocked from his phone, why he was emancipated from him, and why he had a panic attack when one of the security guards offered to drive him home when he was drunk with JJ.

It shouldn’t have gotten so bad. But he and JJ had gone out for drinks, just for fun that night. They were celebrating for going so far in the competition, getting far enough to get into the X Factor tour. JJ was flirting with one of their managers, a pretty blonde thing that George couldn’t remember the name of, before he turned back to George, his eyes glazed over and admitted, “You, little monkey, are confusing.”

“Am I?”

“Yes! You talk at the ground! We can’t hear you when you talk at the ground.”

“Why shouldn’t I talk at the ground?” George asked. “It’s not like anyone’s listening.”

“Of course we’re listening. Why wouldn’t we?”

“Because I don’t add anything to the conversation,” George dropped his shoulders. He was having trouble talking and he wasn’t quite sure his words were coming out straight. He laughed, shaking his head, “I mumble, I giggle, I-“

“But it’s cute, and you’re you, if you want to say it, say it. We won’t make fun.”

“Yeah but-“

“You can look up.”

“You can think whatever you want to think,” His dad was smiling, sitting at his computer. George was fuming, his fists clenched by his sides, but no, his dad just sat his chair, smiling away. George couldn’t even remember what they were arguing about anymore. “But you are wrong.”

“I’m not wrong!”

“You can think that if you want,” Dad nodded, still smiling. “You’re still wrong.”

“You can’t just-!”

“You can think whatever you want to think. But you’re wrong.”

“You’re not listening!”

“I am listening to you. You can think whatever you want to think, George. But you’re wrong.”

Dad had the perfect argument for everything. And oh, how it made George so furious, and that just made Dad laugh so hard when George got angry. He’d laugh and jeer like he’d won something, somehow, and would throw his fists by his temples. And dad would never listen to any of them. 

He might hear them. He’d hear their screams of terror as the car tires screeched around the corners. Dad loved to hear them beg for him to slow the car down. Harriett would cry, and Will’s knuckles would turn white on the side of the door. George was always in the middle, clutching at his siblings arms.

“We just want you to talk to us.”

“I talk,” George protested. “I talked last night! I talked a lot last night.”

“Twit cams and interviews don’t count.”

“Twit cams and interviews should count.” George muttered. He narrowed his eyes, scanning the table. Something was wrong. It was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t quite say it.

“Well, there’s cameras and prodding, so it doesn’t.”

“But its all talking,” George didn’t like this conversation. He preferred the conversations about monkeys, and what his favorite song by One Direction was. He liked the conversations where he all he had to do was giggle or look into a camera rather than eyes that could tell when he was lying.

He could think whatever he wanted, but he was wrong. He just wanted someone to hear him sing. That was all he had wanted. He auditioned for the X Factor to have just a set of judges hear him sing, but then he made it to boot camp, then he got put into a band-

Everything was out of hand. Now people wanted to know what he thought, but he always thought wrong. People wanted to listen? To him? Were they insane? Were they pranking him?

“Your glass.”

“My glass?” JJ asked.

George nodded, and nudged JJ’s beer towards him, realizing what was wrong with it. The liquid was almost to the brim, near full. JJ hadn’t been drinking, meaning that George had been drinking alone. George glared at JJ’s chest accusingly. “You tricked me.”

“I didn’t trick you!”

“You did!”

“Okay, I’ve been drinking slower than you have, but I didn’t- I just wanted to get you comfy, that’s all! You’re very-“

“You’re lying!” George stood up off of the bar stool, fuming towards his band mate. He fumbled a bit- they had been on perhaps their second or third round, JJ wasn’t totally lying.

“George…”

“No.” George insisted. He pushed through the crowd, passed the blond lady that JJ had been flirting with. She tried to grab at George’s hand, but George was a little angry, and waved her away. He was pretty sure she was there to keep them from doing stupid things, but he wasn’t an idiot. He was the cute one: he wore monkey onsies and giggled all the time, he wouldn’t do anything damaging.

But then he got outside of the bar, and he saw the security guard. But it wasn’t Mason or Brandon, or any of the normal X Factor security guards. It wasn’t any one that was used to “George’s Giggle Attacks”. But there was the X Factor Private Security brand on his jacket, and he had the car by his side. But his face, his jaw line, the way his cheek bones sunk into his skull were so familiar.

“Oh my god, please just slow down, just slow down!”

It was the only time he seemed to hear them, in the car when he was speeding so fast around a corner, and they would scream in fear.

“Can I drive you home now, Mr. Shelley?”

When George looked at him, he screamed.

He woke up in his monkey onsie, and his head didn’t even throb. Honestly, he’d had worst headaches from the flu or even just regular colds, but he’d found a tall glass of water and Advil waiting for him on the side table.

“Morning.”

George sat up, rubbing his forehead. “Is it?”

Jahmene nodded, “Only about, ten.”

George groaned. “Ten? What about rehearsal? What are you doing here?”

“To talk.”

George froze. Jahmene was here to talk. Jahmene, so quiet, so shy, so hurt, was here to talk. “You should go then, I really don’t-“

“Half of London heard you screaming, George.”

George looked down. “What did I say?”

“Mostly ‘no, I don’t want to die.” Jahmene shrugged. “But there’s a leak in The X Factor. And now you’re on the face of The Sun as an automobile-phobe,”

George bit his lips, watching as Jahmene sat down on the foot of his bed. He could see, out of the corner of his eye, three shadows under the door of the hotel suite. He sighed, watching as Jahmene’s hands twitched by George’s knee. 

“George, what happened?”

“Jahmene, I can’t.”

“Why not? I’ve been-!”

“No, you had it so much worse.” George shook his head. “In the end, he just didn’t talk to us right. It doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t really count. So no, I can’t talk to you about it.”


End file.
